Tag: fuzz

The most punk duo in the UK right now are the only cunts brave enough to ever call out Steve McGarrett from Hawaii five-O, and that my friend, is why this alienating masterpiece makes this list of good shit this month. Charming bollocks not sung by muppets.- Zac

Run The Meows – ‘Meorly’ (Mass Appeal)

When your crazy idea of having cats appearing as musical instruments to remix your album comes to fruition, and people back it on Kickstarter, the only way to complete the mission is to mike up the felines and get down. EL P came through and delivered, as he always does. Purr over the first offering from the kitty, a mashup of the tune ‘Early’. Download for free from here. Zac

Christian Fitness – ‘The Harder It Hits’ (Prescriptions)

Anyone familiar with Future of the Left will know frontman Andrew Falkous’s acerbic and often unhinged delivery. In new project Christian Fitness, Falkous takes this and adds a healthy dollop of sleaze. Like Prince’s evil brother, his falsetto coos unnervingly, before blasting into a distorted yelp. – Joe Parry

Chastity – ‘Manning Hill’ (s/r)

Continuing the excellent blueprint of Canadian punks who’ve come to our attention over the past few years, Ontario’s Chastity deliver a short blast of melodic noise, both infectious and primal. – Joe Parry

Tigercub – Destroy (Too Pure Singles Club)

Brighton has become a breeding ground for a new brand of band bacteria and Tigercub are set to cause an epidemic. Josh Homme-esque drawling vocal delivery and a testosterone charged attitude is the perfect conglomeration for a sound that’s both brutal and ballsy. Latest single ‘Destroy’ is not only a homage to Kyuss with its burly guitars and plundering bass but a driving force in its own right. – Yasmyn Charles

\\GT// – ‘Something’s Wrong With My Mind’ (Communicating Vessels)

This mysterious power trio hail from Alabama with a sound so thick and dense it’ll engulf you like the fuzzy heat haze of the American South. Their howling, swirling noise will be immortalised on July 31st as they release their debut album Beats Misplaced, until then, feast on this nugget of heavy psychedelic goodness. – Dan Druff

Vexx – ‘Black/White’ (Katorga Works)

Hailing from Olympia, Washington, Vexx are sending out waves of excitement across the worldwide DIY punk scene right now with their buzzsaw Avengers/X inspired punk rock attack. They’re fizzing with excitement and touring through Europe at the moment, before landing back in the UK at the start of August. Get Vexxed. – James Sherry

Springing out of nowhere with an infectious debut that’s primed and ready to have the A&R’s flocking, this new Aussie bunch set their guitars clean and pristine with beautiful harmonies to match. Get this soothing summer gem on repeat. – Augustus Groove

FLESH – N0T GNA (S/R)

Manchester’s Flesh are crass and caustic. Fuzzed-out guitars trip and roll over baggy Monday’s inspired beats. It’s evident to see why the four-piece have labelled themselves as ‘snot-pop’. Latest single ‘Not Gna’ displays the group’s brattiness in one hard hitting dose. Turbulent riffs and defiant lyrics portray the band as a bunch of wayward delinquents with an attitude to match their huge sound. – Yasmyn Charles

RiXE – ‘INFATIGABLES’ (La Vida Es Un Mus Records)

From their Coups & Blessures EP, these young Parisian bootboys have delivered one of the great records of 2015. Sharp, dynamic, punch heavy anthems are the order of the day. Go see ‘em in the UK in July. – Pete Craven

Ought – ‘Beautiful Blue Sky’ (Constellation)

Montreal’s Ought have followed up their 2014 album More Than Any Other Day with the sprawling ‘Beautiful Blue Sky’. Despite the repetition throughout, the track opens and reveals itself over its seven-minutes. A lot of their music feels like it unravelling, but this is the most composed they’ve ever sounded. – Joe Parry

Featuring ex-Chumbawamba men Dunstan and Harry, Interrobang?! takes them back to their sharp post-punk roots; The Fall, Wire, Crass, words that mean something, music that inspires action. ‘Love It All’ is their second single and is tense, uptight and then explodes. Fabulously exciting stuff. – James Sherry

Fuzz – ‘Rat Race’ / ‘Pollinate’ (In The Red)

These 2 bonus final numbers have Ty Segall on drums in his new project Fuzz. Would love to know how many new projects he has coming out this year, bloke must not sleep, but once again, it’s on point. Wizard steez stoner radness… – Zac

We all know Ty Segall likes a good ol’ knees up ’round the old Joanna, dipping his psychedelic toes into side projects and collaborations under the guise of Fuzz, The Traditional Fools, Sic Alps, White Fence and many more, not to mention eight studio albums under his own name.

Today, we discover Segall’s involvement in a new band called Broken Bat, and it’s quite possibly the most exciting super group you’ll hear about this year. Featuring Segall himself, the Melvins’ Dale Crover on drums, and OFF!/Redd Kross bassist Steven McDonald, the trio have just revealed a teaser song snippet on BandCamp titled ‘Take My Medicine’.

Brighton via Canterbury fuzz peddlers, GANG, knocked our socks off with their screeching octofuzz prowess earlier this year, steaming past our peripherals with their electric new single ‘Silverback’. Upon delving deeper into their SoundCloud pages we found a treasure trove of mind bending noise, and managed to catch up with them to talk all things psych, and ask what’s next for this exciting new trio.

For those who haven’t heard your music before, how would you describe Gang in a sentence?

Gloomy tunes.

How, when and why did you three gentlemen come to be the Gang that you are?

We (Eric & Jimi) are brothers so we met when Eric was born. We met Joe two weeks before our first gig, and he stood in for another guy on bass who had drilled a hole through his hand. We kept Joe around for his perfect hands and his firm grip.

Is there one album/artist in particular that without, the band might never have come to be?

Ty Segall’s Twins was a big one for us because it opened us up to a lot of modern garage and psych music. Other than that we like a lot of different stuff – 60s psych/garage/pop (Gandalf, The Doors, King Crimson etc.), 70s Metal & punk (loads of Sabbath), 80s alternative rock (anything associated with Steve Albini like Slint and Pixies etc. and many others) leading into 80s/90s Seattle grunge.

There’s so much good underground music at the moment, probably because mainstream music is so dire right now. A band called Wand from California are tickling our pickles the most at the moment. We also listen to an unhealthy amount of stoner rock like Eyehategod, Electric Wizard and Melvins.

Your hometown has such a rich musical history, are there any particular Canterbury-scene bands you look to as influences?

Yeah, the way they all experimented with sonics was so sick. Joe’s dad was drinking buddies with Caravan, and Hugh Hopper from Soft Machine used to come round to Eric & Jimi’s dad’s little studio. We totally ripped Gong’s name by accident too.

So what made you up sticks from Canterbury and head south to Brighton?

Jimi had just finished his English Degree so the other two moved down after Joe got sacked for drinking too much tequila one night and rolling around on the floor. There wasn’t any music scene going on in Canterbury, though Margate in Kent started having some rad shows courtesy of Art’s Cool. We just moved down to be beside the seaside with our beloved drummer. That’s when we properly got our act together as a band because we were all in the same place, we hadn’t done much before that. That was exactly a year ago last month. Happy moving anniversary.

How would you describe Brighton’s music scene right now?

Everyone’s brothers in arms here, we all go to each other’s shows and have a jolly good time. Theo Verney, Fuoco, Tusks, Pink Lizards, Morning Smoke, Abattoir Blues, The Magic Gang, Demob Happy, Big Society, Kit Wharton, Munez and and probably loads of others who we can’t remember right now.How do you like to write? Is there a sole songwriter amongst you?

Jimi and Eric both write the songs and then we take them into the room and disfigure them. Jimi’s singing lead on the new tracks he’s written which is sweet but unfortunately they haven’t been released yet. Creamy dulcet tones.

Tell us about ‘Silverback’, what’s the track about, and how would you compare the ‘Silverback’ sessions to recording Sandscrape last year?

We’re all apes, man. I (Eric) actually record all of our stuff at my dad’s little studio, so it was pretty much the same process though I’d learned quite a lot since recording Sandscrape. We also recorded a version of Silverback with our buddy Theo Verney that’s on the cassette as well and it’s delightful. It’s actually the oldest song we still play but we thought we should put it out there before it died.

Your ‘Silverback’ video is a true mind-melter, what is the most mind melting experience Gang have had so far?

Making that video with our roomy Chris Wade of Dogbrain Videos was very intense and beautiful. Apart from that we’re pretty clean living, straight edge, polite young hermits.

Rad! So lastly, what can we expect from Gang next?

We’ve got a lot of pretty extreme stuff we’ve just recorded which we’re really pumped about that will be out sometime this year. No release plans yet, though we’ll be sorting that soon. We recently left the south for the first time at the beginning of this month to do shows in Leeds, Sheffield & Cardiff (Swn Festival) too, and we’ll be playing some lovely festivals over the summer. Also, one day we will all be dead.

Canada’s output of noise is nothing short of stunning, throughout history countless amazing bands have consistently travelled to our shores and shook us little Englanders senseless with deadly doses of feedback and fuzz. From D.O.A to Fucked Up, when the Canadians come to town, you know it’s going to get ridiculously loud.

Tonight makes no exception to the rule with Metz wreaking total havoc within seconds of scaling the stage. Their riffs are nothing short of earth shaking, and that’s the thing that sets them far apart from their support bands tonight and every other band that chose to sit on the fence – Metz radiate with a pure, palpable energy with every hit they cook up. From the opening notes of ‘Dirty Shirt’ the whole band are drenched in sweat, frontman Alex Edkins is a man possessed, scrambling around the stage wrestling with his Jazzmaster as if it were a boa constrictor, while the impermeable rhythm section provides a total masterclass in speed and agility.

Righteous crowd pleasers come in the form of 2011 album cuts ‘Wasted’, ‘Knife In The Water’ and ‘Headache’, the opening drum pattern of which has the audience chanting along with the volume of Arsenal at home in an instant. It’s not all safe bets though, Metz offer a delicious preview of new material from their forthcoming album, with the recently teased ‘Acetate’ exploding like a bullet from a gun. And it’s welcomed with open arms as the audience continue to catapult each other through the air as though it were an old favourite.

The prowess and energy these three Canadians exude with every riff, snare crack and scream tonight is truly remarkable. Though the crowd are a mere fraction of the size compared to our 2013 encounter at Village Underground, Metz rule the width of The 100 with ease.